Why stores will win

So you can choose to shop in a store, online or on the phone

On my last blog I said that the service that I got from the 3 telesales team was rubbish, they sent me all over the place to get what I needed...yuk.

So on Saturday I needed to sort out a new dongle (mobile broadband) and I hit the High St, vowing not to go into the 3 store. As a guy I kinda enjoyed doing all the techie shops and ended up thinking that I'm going to have to go into 3, I know they have the largest 3G network, and they're probably going to be cheaper.

I went in, the guy serving really knew his stuff, he listened to me, asked good questions, gave me the solution I wanted, and I so bought it.

So retail can work, it needs to be a good experience, but the reason why stores will win in the end is the human contact. We are social, tactile, community loving PEOPLE and we love it when others make us feel valued. In a way no computer or phone can do it.

Get it right, and stores have a really good long term future.

and the award for worst customer service ever goes to....

I'm about to move over to an iphone and so need to extract myself from "3". I've been pretty happy with them up till tonight. I sent them an email, and they called me straight back, pretty good I thought, until they put me on hold, for 30 mins!

remember they called me!

Then I got transferred twice, having to give all my details again & again.

The guy at the end of the line obviously had a tick sheet of questions to go through, and boy was it painful. Even when I asked, politely, not to waste any more of my time, he plowed on. Needless to say it wasn't UK call centre so the line was bad, ( ironic for a phone company) and his accent made conversation difficult.

So I'm leaving 3, not as a satisfied customer ,but a disgruntled one.

And after 18 months of good service, they ruin it in just 38 minutes.

I learnt from this

1. How easy it is to ruin your reputation.
2. How fickle I am.
3. How high our service expectations are.

Tough ol' world...